Web hosting Custom Email SiteBuilder

First published in 1963 as The Fourth-Dimensional Nightmare this revised and re-titled edition consists of eight classic stories from ‘one of the grand magicians of modern fiction’ [ref. Brian Aldiss].
     The first story, The Voices Of Time, is the jewel in the collection, entropy and biological fantasies are just two of the themes in this mysterious and deeply mystical novelette, which draws together many of Ballard’s major obsessions. An unidentified radio source is received from Canes Venatici, ‘the big spirals there [are] breaking up’ beaming a countdown to the end of the universe. This is leading to climatic modifications on the Earth, altering the DNA of the terrestrial creatures, and activating the ‘silent pair’ - two inactive genes found in a small percentage of living organisms. It’s nature’s last desperate stand against extinction; resulting in fabulous armoured toads with radiological shields, and spiders spewing webs of ‘external neural plexus’ that act as ‘an inflatable brain’.
     The phantom of past applause haunts a forgotten diva in the following story, The Sound-Sweep; set in a time where ultrasonic music is the norm, and only a crank would listen to a sonic LP.
     The third story, The Overloaded Man is Ballard at his most surreal. Faulkner wants to escape from his wife - by severing the meaning to the objects in his world.  His wife’s face becomes ‘nothing more than a blunted wedge of pink-grey dough, deformed by ridges and grooves, split by apertures that opened and closed like the vents of some curious bellows.’
     Applied psychology next, in Thirteen to Centaurus. A spaceship heads to Centaurus; but hasn’t left the Earth. It ends with the psychologist discovering that he himself was the subject of one of the subjects on-board.
     The Garden of Time is one of the best stories in the book. The imagery of the time flowers transforming Axel’s garden, ‘subtly altering its dimensions of time and space’ is superb.
     Mars, and a Martian virus that preys on plants comes to Earth in The Cage of Sand, and The Watch-Towers impales the heart of paranoia. Finally, Chronopolis gives us ‘The Time Police’ in a society where clocks have been outlawed under ‘The Time Laws’.
     These eight stories transcend the boundaries of fantasy and science fiction. Perhaps not Ballard’s strongest collection, The Voices of Time, nevertheless is essential reading.

(c) Tony Mileman. First Published in The Third Alternative, issue 27, June 2001.